


Go Too Far, and You'll Be Drowned

by lesbianettes



Category: Chicago Med
Genre: AU, Angst, F/F, Oneshot, Stand-alone, elsa plays violin, no context needed, sarah is a dead ghost, this is the setup for the violin!au on my tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:22:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21739807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianettes/pseuds/lesbianettes
Summary: Elsa Curry stumbles upon an antique violin.
Relationships: Elsa Curry/Sarah Reese
Kudos: 2





	Go Too Far, and You'll Be Drowned

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "All is Found" from Frozen Two

It calls to her.

Elsa doesn’t know entirely why she picks up the antique violin, heavy set and still beautifully polished despite its alleged age, the bow leaning against it with strings that look like they’ve just been pulled taut and waxed. It seems like an instrument often played. Although it’s still and alone, she feels it’s full of music nonetheless, a haunting melody drawing her nearer and forcing her practiced fingers to position themselves on the neck.

She doesn’t mean to play it, but an invisible force lifts it up to rest against her shoulder and cheek, the bow unusually warm in her hand. While she knows countless songs by heart, the one she begins to play is a haunting melody that sounds familiar but she doesn’t recall practicing or even reading the sheet music for. She’s almost afraid of the violin, almost feels like it’s playing her as the surprisingly fine tuned strings give chords that should make her wince with their distance but instead fit the sound of each note played. 

“That’s beautiful,” the woman behind the counter says dreamily, resting her face atop a manicured palm. She doesn’t play a stringed instrument with delicate hands like those. “What song is it?”

“I don’t know,” Elsa answers.

It takes a great deal of willpower to force herself to lower it, the music cutting off abruptly with a sound like a record scratch. Just as sudden, the woman snaps out of her haze and straightens up to drum her acrylic nails on the counter.

“Either way, it’s an antique, so it’s not cheap.”

“Does anyone play it? It seems well taken care of.”

The woman shrugs. “Not that I know of. Do you want it or not?”

Reluctantly, Elsa pulls her card out of her back pocket. She only came to drop off her violin to get new strings put in, but this one… she can’t seem to put it down. The wood is almost alive. Glossy wood, unsplit and unrotted despite its age, stares up at her in a plea she can’t refuse. 

“I’ll take it.”

Even though the charge it racks up makes her chest constrict, she takes it. She signs the receipt. She gently lays the violin in a cheap canvas case, because she hadn’t intended to get a new one and has nothing nice for it yet, and carries it to the car on her back before heading home. In her passenger seat, it keeps singing, keeps calling to her, to the point that she can hardly focus on the road for the draw she has to pick it up and play it again. She’s never felt like this before, even after all the time that she’s spent perfecting each note she plays.

She wonders if this is a sign that she’s losing it; ever since she lost her home in the orchestra, Elsa has to admit that she’s been a little fragile. There’s no other way to describe it. Each sour note when her shaking fingers slip sends her spiraling deeper and deeper into a self-loathing that sometimes has a twist of anxiety tightening her chest added in, just for the fun of it. Or something like that.

Violins, however beautiful, aren’t capable of singing for her or forcing her to play. That song she played in the shop must have been something she practiced long ago and has since forgotten about; it’s the only answer that makes any sense at this point. And Elsa likes things to make sense. 

By the time she gets home, she’s shaking with the need to play the new violin. Just stand at the window, staring out over the rural scape where there’s no one for miles and each note she plays fills her ears alone, before sinking into the walls. The house is old, like the instrument, although it was less of an impulse and more of a necessity. She had to escape the crowded city and the pain it brought with it.

Music, just as haunting and twice as sweet, seeps into the wooden walls and floods her veins, piece by piece. She is soothed by it, lulled by it, loved by it in the cold air because she hasn’t yet figured out how the old-fashioned furnace works. The violin and its strings will eventually go brittle in the cold.

She plays until her fingers are sore, the most beautiful sounds she’s ever been blessed to hear, watching the sky melt into dusk and eventually, more stars than were ever visible in the confines of the deep downtown blocks. So alluring. She would like to turn to stardust, or rather, return, when she has nothing left to give herself, let alone the world. It would be peaceful, she imagines, and freeing in the best kind of way. It’s what she deserves to experience after all she’s been through.

But the second her exhausted hands falter, she finds herself lowering the violin and there are cold, wet hands on her wrists. Elsa toys with a scream in her throat as she looks into a pale face, with sunken cheeks and eyes, blue lips, messy hair soaked and plastered to translucent skin. At first Elsa think she’s seeing things. It wouldn’t be the first time. But there’s a realness to the point of contact, and she can hear the steady drip-drip of water onto the flooring.

“You should never play that song,” the thing says. Its voice comes in a pleasing lilt, not too high or low, and with a honey in the drawn out vowels. “They’ll kill you.”

“You’re not real,” Elsa counters.

Although the hands stilling her, capturing her, feel real, and they resist when she pushes against them. One deep breath. Two. She needs to get her phone and take a picture, prove to herself that this isn’t real. Or play more music, find out if the voice is still easily heard. Little tricks she picked up, little things she’s learned to help herself tell the difference when things get bad, which they really haven’t since she actually got treatment. This is some sort of relapse, she reasons. She’ll tell her doctor about it in a couple weeks when they meet again.

“None of us are real. But when you play that song, the women will come, and you will pay the price.”

That doesn’t even make sense. So Elsa pulls harder until her arms are freed and puts the violin back in its case, staring at her like it, too, has eyes.

“I used to play that violin. It was made just for me. My beautiful little thing, so well tuned no matter the hour or weather; people used to listen to me. They listened and they praised me and dropped coins at my feet, until-” Its face turns dark and angry. “The women come, and I suffered for it. Do not make my mistakes.”

Just like that, it is gone, and Elsa almost takes heed of the warning. Then again, it’s just another mess made up in her mind to cope with her stress and overworking and lack of sleep. She imagined it. It’s not real.

Nonetheless, she seals the violin away, and forces herself not to come back to it for the rest of the evening.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr @princessbekker


End file.
